There has long been a need for self-feeding apparatuses for use by individuals having physical limitations or disabilities, but who are otherwise perfectly capable of selecting and orally consuming desired foods. Without such devices, individuals must rely on nurses, guardians or other caretaker assistants through the entire course of a meal.
The self-feeding devices previously known have not been entirely satisfactory. Some devices require the user to be fitted with a headband and a scraping utensil to push food into a spoon, a chute, or a mouthpiece with head and neck motions activating the scraper attached to the headband. Such devices are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,734,306; 4,398,857; and 4,364,699. These devices have various drawbacks, especially where the control of head and neck motion of the user may be restricted or otherwise not capable of the type of fine motor coordination required to scrape food from a larger receptacle to a smaller dispensing utensil. Similar drawbacks are associated with feeding devices as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,885,681 and 4,218,167, which require the user to exert sufficient head and neck control to operate the spoon, fork or other eating appliance with the handle in the user's mouth, placing the utensil in a stationary position and releasing the handle or control mechanism to consume the food previously placed on the utensil.
One feeding device, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,162,868 applies measured quantities of food from selectable receptacles by means of pressurizing the receptacles. Essentially, this device provides premeasured slugs of semifluid foodstuffs into a linearly reciprocating spoon for presentation to the user for consumption. Such a device is not well-suited for many normal types of food, such as chopped vegetables, meat and the like, which are not pureed to a liquid form. Further, the pressurized receptacles can obscure the view of the food from the user, making personal selection of the type of food difficult and unappetizing.
Another self-service apparatus for serving food and drinks is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,624,613, in which a horizontal carousel rotating about a vertical axis is rotatable in predetermined steps about a horizontal axis so that solid foods can be pushed radially toward the user through an opening in the carousel on individual serving trays. This device requires independent loading of each serving tray with small portions of food or drink to be presented to the user.
Another self-serving feeding apparatus, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,433,950, provides a spoon carried by a pivot arm which is permitted to fall by gravity about its pivot point to lower it across a plate, which plate turns incrementally toward the spoon, thereby filling the spoon. Subsequently, the spoon is lifted above the plate for consumption. The plate can be selectably positioned to scoop different varieties variously placed at differing locations on the plate, thereby allowing the user to select the food desired. This device has drawbacks in that controlling the dropping of the spoon onto the plate at the desired position is difficult, the foods become mixed together as the plate is turned and the presentation of the spoon upwardly over the plate in many instances does not allow the user adequate clearance to access the spoon for consumption.
Another device for feeding physically-impaired persons, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,522,543, includes a spoon supported for orbital and rectilinear movement in a predetermined path with one or more receptacles being moveable into the path of movement of the moving spoon. This device requires a large mechanism to accomplish the appropriate orbital and rectilinear motion. It has a further drawback, that it does not permit the spoon to be emptied of its content between feeding cycles, such that if the food from one receptacle is initially selected and then rejected, the quantity remaining on the spoon cannot be removed by the user without eating it or mixing it with food in other receptacles.
Thus, the previously known self-feeding devices are generally cumbersome, bulky, awkward or otherwise at variance from the style of eating generally adopted by individuals without physical disabilities. Users of such devices are often embarrassed by the awkwardness and obvious differences in the style of eating which they must endure.